Jumbo's Hide, Elvis's Ride, and the Tooth of Buddha

by Harvey Rachlin

  Over the years, as the film itself has acquired legendary status, the Maltese falcon prop has been widely counterfeited. In 1993 Christie’s, the auction house, put up for sale a five-pound resin Maltese falcon statue allegedly used in the Humphrey Bogart movie. The authenticity of the Christie’s figurine was disputed, and the auction was canceled. It has never been proved that this statue matches any image of the Maltese falcon seen in the movie.

  One of the two real props made for the classic Bogart film was auctioned by Christie’s the following year, this one coming from the estate of actor and director William Conrad, who used the prop as a bookend after supposedly receiving it as a gift from Jack Warner, the head of Warner Brothers.

  As in the movie, the statue in real life turned out to be an object of consuming desire, even if it had no inherent value. In December 1994, jeweler Ronald Winston purchased the statue for a hefty $398,000. In the film the raving character played by Sydney Greenstreet uses a penknife to slash the Maltese falcon and discovers it is not made of gold but lead. The statue purchased by Winston is believed by some to have been a practice prop as its slash marks are too deep and abundant, and does not have a bent tail feather as seen in the film.*

  After acquiring the prop, Winston, son of the famed jeweler Harry Winston, who donated the Hope Diamond to the Smithsonian Institution, decided to fulfill the dreams of the characters. He created the Winston falcon, a ten-pound, 11¼-inch-high solid-gold statue with two Burmese cabochon ruby eyes and a 42.98-carat pear-shaped diamond on a platinum chain hanging from the beak, all mounted on a four-inch-square malachite base. It was initially valued at $8 million. Winston, however, reportedly sold the movie-prop Maltese falcon for one million dollars within a few years after acquiring it.

  The other Maltese falcon prop from the Humphrey Bogart movie was purchased in 1987 by Dr. Gary Milan, a Beverly Hills dentist and artifact collector. Milan’s falcon, like the one usually seen in the film, has a bent tail feather, unlike the other Maltese falcon prop from the movie, as well as some slash marks.

  Humphrey Bogart’s Sam Spade detective character poignantly observed that the Maltese falcon was “the stuff dreams are made of.” Indeed so in big-screen make-believe, but the statuettes would have little actual value if they hadn’t been the centerpiece of one of the most popular motion pictures of all time. Plucked from the set of a fictional movie where they represented an unobtainable object of desire for a cast of colorful, unforgettable characters, the Maltese falcon statuettes—by virtue of their metamorphosis from cheap props into fabulously expensive collectors’ items—may now be said to have become dreams made into stuff.

  LOCATIONS: Warner Bros. Museum, Burbank, California (on temporary loan from Dr. Gary Milan); the Winston falcon is owned by a person who wishes to remain anonymous.

  Footnote

  *The bent tail feather may have resulted from an accident on the set in which the falcon was dropped, just missing actress Lee Patrick’s foot and slightly injuring Bogart’s toes.

  MONTY’S BATTLE CARAVANS

  DATE: 1942-1945.

  WHAT THEY ARE: The three trailers used by the revered British commander of the Eighth Army, Bernard Law Montgomery, during his North African and Northwest European military campaigns in World War II.

  WHAT THEY LOOK LIKE: Two of the caravans were made in Italy. The first one used by Montgomery, remounted on a British Leyland chassis, is 24 feet long, 8 feet wide, and 10 feet, 6 inches high. The next caravan acquired by the British commander was remounted on an American Mack chassis and measures 27 feet long, 8 feet wide, and 12 feet high. The map lorry (motortruck) measures 31 feet long, 7 feet, 6 inches wide, and 11 feet high.

  The subtle ironies of war are sometimes best appreciated after the smoke has cleared and historians have been able to sift through the ashes of events and weigh in with their assessments. Not so with Bernard Law Montgomery, who at the time of his greatest military challenge zestfully embraced the ironies of war and rode their crest to victory—roaming the desert sands of North Africa in the mobile home of an Italian enemy general, its walls adorned with pictures of his nemesis, Erwin Rommel, and other top German commanders.

  By the summer of 1942, Adolf Hitler’s master plan for global domination hung darkly over the free nations of the world. Poland, Norway, Denmark, France, Greece, Belgium, Yugoslavia, the Netherlands, and other countries had one after another been swallowed up by Germany, which had by now invaded Russia and was penetrating ever deeper into its heart. German submarines and mines were destroying American and British merchant vessels on the seas. Japanese forces dominated the western Pacific and Southeast Asia. There were Allied victories, to be sure, but the future looked grim and doubtful, promising more warfare and death and hinting at the unthinkable: an Axis victory.

  In February 1941, about four months before Germany launched its invasion of Russia, German major general Erwin Rommel arrived in Africa to help Mussolini, who had promised Hitler to bring Africa under Axis control. Germany was now eager to conquer North Africa, with Egypt, including the Suez Canal, the prized target, and move on to the Middle East oil fields. The Italian army in Libya needed help, and that would come with great vigor from Rommel leading the German Afrika Korps.

  Rommel penetrated Egypt without much resistance. The British Eighth Army was repelled by Rommel’s relentless drive, and it appeared Egypt was about to fall to the Germans. But Rommel’s offensive, begun in January 1942, would eventually falter, thanks in part to the decision to bring in Bernard Montgomery to command the British troops.

  On July 1, an advance by Rommel’s Afrika Korps, bolstered by Italian forces, reached El Alamein in Egypt, the final Allied barrier to fend off an Axis drive to Alexandria and the Suez Canal, Cairo, Iraq, Iran, and ultimately India. But the British held off the German-Italian army, and in mid-August Montgomery, selected by Winston Churchill, replaced Sir Claude Auchinleck as commander in chief of the British Eighth Army in North Africa.

  Field Marshal Montgomery outside his caravans on November 5, 1946, greeting the man he defeated, Field Marshal Ernest Busch, the commander in chief of the German armies in northwest Europe, accompanied by General Gareis, the senior German liaison officer, at Luneburg Heath, a previous training site for the Wehrmacht.

  Montgomery’s task was formidable indeed, but his mission was crucial. When Monty, as his soldiers called him, came to the desert to take command of the Eighth Army, he was assigned for his quarters the mobile home of the Eighth Army commander—a caravan captured from the Italian general Berganzoli, known to his troops since the Spanish Civil War as “Barba Electrica” (Electric Beard, probably derived from his bushy and spiky beard and mustache), and dubbed “Old Electric Whiskers” by the British. The caravan not only had been made in Italy, an enemy country, but bore pictures of enemy leaders: a signed pastel of Rommel and two photographs each of two esteemed German field marshals, Albrecht Kesselring and Gerd von Rundstedt.

  Monty’s battlefield caravan was more than just a bed on wheels. In the confines of this trailer he spent much time strategizing, reflecting, and letting his imagination spark his insight into human nature.

  But why didn’t the British commander take down the photographs of the German leaders?

  As Monty would later say, “I used to look at the photograph of the general I was up against at the moment and try and decide what sort of person he was and how he was likely to react to any moves I might make against him. In some curious way this helped me in the battle.”

  Monty painstakingly prepared attack plans against the enemy, which had superior armor, and in the late night and early morning darkness of October 23-24, 1942, the British Eighth Army began an all-out assault on the combined German-Italian force at El Alamein. The battle would prove to be one of the most important of World War II, a decisive strategic gain and morale boost for the victor.

  When the battle erupted, Monty was in his first caravan (mounted on the Leyland chassis), which had served as his “home” at t
he Battle of Alam Haifa on August 31, 1942. The military leader was resting comfortably when the firing began at 9:40 P.M. on October 23. As Monty would later write in his Memoirs: “The barrage of over one thousand guns opened, and the Eighth Army which included some 1200 tanks went into the attack. At that moment I was asleep in my caravan.”

  The Allied attack at El Alamein was ferocious. Against a wide swath of German land mines, tanks, and infantry, Allied artillery units bore down with determination. Royal Air Force raids destroyed Axis planes waiting on airfields to be deployed in bombing missions. Dummy armor, equipment, pipelines, and other displays were used to confuse the Germans about where the attacks would be launched. On November 4, less than two weeks after the drive began, the badly battered Axis forces retreated. The Allied victory was a major success for Monty, whose brilliant leadership launched him into legend.

  As the war blazed on, Monty’s Eighth Army captured another caravan in the desert in Tunisia. Like Monty’s mobile home, this had also been used by an Italian commander, Marshal Giovanni Messe, and been manufactured in Italy. Messe had succeeded Rommel, who was ill and had returned to Germany. At Monty’s headquarters, where Messe was taken after his capture following the surrender of Italian forces in May 1943, the Italian commander told Monty that Rommel had used the caravan himself.

  Monty adopted this prize as his living quarters, adapting his previous home to serve as his office. His new dwelling was a major step up from the previous one: it had a bath. Visitors to his new quarters were frequent, but the British commander would not displace himself except for the most esteemed guests. As he would later say, “I would turn out of this new caravan only for two people: the King, George VI, and Winston Churchill. Other and less important VIPs were given a tent.”

  Montgomery’s caravans went with him to the Mediterranean island of Sicily and to Italy when he waged a campaign there before the invasion of Normandy, where Monty was in charge of the Allied ground forces.

  Monty’s third caravan was the only one not captured from an enemy; it had been tailor-made for its military purpose by a British manufacturer. The caravan served as a map center, in which were hung maps that Monty and his staff assessed daily in planning their strategies; it was also used as a communications center.

  Of the three caravans, Monty deemed this last one the most important. As he later recalled:

  The third caravan, with the maps, is in my view the most interesting and historic of the three. During the campaign in the desert, in Sicily, and in Italy, I had always felt the need of a map lorry from which I could conduct the war and have telephone conversations with my subordinate generals. I decided this lack must be made good for the battle for Normandy and the campaign in North West Europe. So when I arrived back in Italy in January 1944 my staff approached the British Trailer Company Limited of Trafford Park, Manchester, and asked if they would make me an articulated caravan to our design. They willingly agreed.

  In this map lorry, Monty regularly received the reports of his staff from which he made strategic decisions. Much of Monty’s later war effort was conducted in this caravan. As he also noted, “It was in this map lorry that my team of liaison officers gave me every night the latest situation on the various parts of the fronts visited by them. Winston Churchill always liked to listen to these reports whenever he stayed with me and so did King George VI.”

  In early January 1944, Montgomery returned to England to begin planning with General Dwight D. Eisenhower the Allied invasion of Europe; Monty would lead the ground units, while Eisenhower would act as supreme commander. Monty relinquished his ground command to Eisenhower in September and took over leadership of the British 21st Army Group, with responsibility for over a million soldiers. During this command, which continued until the conclusion of World War II, Monty used all three caravans as a mobile headquarters in the field.

  French fighting forces guard Montgomery's caravan (the Eighth Army Advanced Headquarters) in Tripolitania.

  After the war Monty claimed the three battle caravans for himself, in the face of opposition from the British War Office. Finally the War Office relented and decided to allow the commander to keep them during his lifetime. Monty in turn pledged that they would after his death be turned over to their current home.

  From African deserts to the beaches of Normandy to the streets of Berlin, Montgomery’s caravans served a vital purpose. They were like faithful old companions, which is why he insisted on keeping them after the war despite the objections of the British War Office. Indeed, Montgomery, who rose in rank to field marshal, considered his battle caravans important historical artifacts. “In years to come,” he wrote, “historians and scholars will learn with interest how the commander in chief of the British Army in the field lived during the war against Hitler’s Germany, and will be able to see the map lorry from which he conducted operations of great armies of over one million men.”

  Today the caravans testify not just to the fortitude, brilliance, and resourcefulness with which Monty commanded the Allied armies during World War II, but to the heroism of a gallant commander and the million soldiers he led to victory over the Axis powers in the most destructive war in history.

  LOCATION: Imperial War Museum, London.

  THE WORLD WAR II JAPANESE

  SURRENDER TABLE

  DATE: 1945.

  WHAT IT IS: The table on which Japanese dignitaries and Allied representatives signed the document providing for Japan’s surrender in World War II.

  WHAT IT LOOKS LIKE: It is a silvery metal folding table that measures 96 inches long by 27 inches wide by 30 inches high when standing. The table has many scratches, and its underside is stamped in two places with the name of its manufacturer, “Metal Office Furn. Co., Grand Rapids, Mich.”

  With the proceedings about to commence, peace would officially be restored to a world ravaged by a war unprecedented in violence. On sea, on land, and in the air, combatants had wreaked havoc on foe and civilian alike on a scale never seen before. With concentration camps, human ovens, mass executions, prisoner-of-war camps, and atomic bombs, humans inflicted unspeakable atrocities upon one another. But Japan’s surrender would ensure that the last battles would be brought to a halt, that imprisoned soldiers would no longer suffer barbarities at the hands of their captors, and that civilian populations would be relieved of the anguish of war. Japan’s official capitulation was a monumental event long dreamed of by most of the world, one that would allow armies to disperse and restore human liberty and dignity to millions of noncombatants—and, it was hoped, would launch the world into a new era of peace and tranquility.

  Present for the signing of the surrender instrument would be the most distinguished commanders of the Allied powers, as well as political and military dignitaries of the vanquished nation of Japan. With the elaborate preparations made for this historic encounter, how is it that a simple mess table, a plain piece of furniture on which sailors ate their humble meals, became the stage on which World War II was brought to an end?

  With Germany and Italy defeated, Japan was the last major Axis power still fighting at the end of World War II. Several Allied declarations preceded the catastrophic events that would compel the Japanese government to yield, notifications that warned of the Allies’ determination to fight Japan and that the country’s ultimate surrender might come at a great cost.

  In the Cairo Declaration, released on December 1, 1943, the U.S. president, Franklin D. Roosevelt, the Chinese general, Chiang Kai-shek, and the British Prime Minister, Winston Churchill, resolved that:

  The several military missions have agreed upon future military operations against Japan. The three Great Allies expressed their resolve to bring unrelenting pressure against their brutal enemy by sea, land, and air. This pressure is already rising. The three Great Allies are fighting this war to restrain and punish the aggression of Japan. They covet no gain for themselves and have no thought of territorial expansion. It is their purpose that Japan shall be stripped of a
ll the islands in the Pacific which she has seized or occupied since the beginning of the first World War in 1914, and that all the territories Japan has stolen from the Chinese, such as Manchuria, Formosa, and the Pescadores, shall be restored to the Republic of China. Japan will also be expelled from all other territories which she has taken by violence and greed. The aforesaid three great powers, mindful of the enslavement of the people of Korea, are determined that in due course Korea shall become free and independent.

  With these objects on view the three Allies, in harmony with those of the United Nations at war with Japan, will continue to persevere in the serious and prolonged operations necessary to procure the unconditional surrender of Japan.

  Fourteen months later, on February 11, 1945, an agreement was signed at Yalta stating: “The leaders of the three Great Powers—the Soviet Union, the United States of America and Great Britain—have agreed that in two or three months after Germany has surrendered and the war in Europe has terminated the Soviet Union shall enter into the war against Japan on the side of the Allies. …”

  On July 26, 1945, the leaders of the United States, the Republic of China, and Great Britain issued the Potsdam Proclamation, in which they demanded that the terms of the Cairo Declaration be carried out, that those Japanese authorities who had deceived the Japanese people into embarking on world conquest be ousted, that Japan’s war-making power be destroyed, that the Japanese military forces be disarmed—that there be an immediate and unconditional surrender. If these terms were not carried out, the Allied powers promised Japan’s “prompt and utter destruction.”

  The Japanese cabinet debated a surrender to the Allies, and while many members favored surrendering, not all did, and in an official statement issued on July 28 Prime Minister Kantaro Suzuki nonchalantly dismissed the Potsdam Proclamation, asserting it offered little improvement over the Cairo Declaration. American newspapers responded by reporting that Japan ignored the demand for surrender.